Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Good
news for fans of Lisa May, formerly heard as part of the Kevin and Bean
morning show on KROQ (106.7 FM) throughout much of its history. You may
recall that traffic reporter/sidekick May -- and newsman Doc -- were
unceremoniously dumped from the program they helped build back in
February.

May
has landed on her feet, with the help of KLOS (95.5 FM). Station owner
Cumulus Media announced late last week that May would join the program
as a traffic reporter and “contributor” beginning May 11.

Contributor?
Kind of a catch-all, since May did, and does, mush more. Explains KLOS
programmer Keith Cunningham: “May isn’t just a traffic reporter or
female sidekick, she’s a radio brand and she’s beloved by Southern
California radio listeners. She’ll be doing a lot more than traffic and
we can’t wait to get her in the building.”

This
is not the first time May has been on with the morning duo. In March,
she was on with Heidi and Frank to do the sendoff she was not allowed to
do before being let go from KROQ. It appears that this accidental
audition got things in motion that led to her being added to the show
permanently.

If
you happened to hear the program this week (which airs weekdays from 6
to 10 a.m.), let me know what you think. Personally I think she can only
add to the program.

Problems at Neilsen

When
Arbitron Ratings initially released the Portable People Meter, the
claim was that radio station ratings would be far more accurate than
ever before.

Unlike
the old days which used a diary system in which people would write
their listening habits down in a diary, often much later than the
listening actually took place, PPM would measure actual listening as it
happened. People agreeing to wear a meter would wear it all day, the
meter would pick up audio in the environment, and as long as the station
encodes their audio with a special signal, the PPM can decode listening
habits. Instant ratings, accurate down to the minute. Or so they say.

Problems
started surfacing even before Arbitron was bought by the Nielsen
Company. Were there enough PPMs in the field? Probably not, as one meter
counts for as many as 2500 listeners ... or more. I don’t recall the
total number of PPMs in the field for Los Angeles, but I do recall being
shocked at how low it is.

Worse,
Arbitron still “weights” particular demographics because it seems some
age groups or ethnicities have an aversion to wearing the PPM. So an
already small number of PPMs becomes even smaller when split up into
demographics, so suddenly one person can make a huge difference in
ratings calculations This was seen last year when Nielsen recalled the
entire Los Angeles ratings report to recalculate it after it was
determined that someone manipulated a PPM.

Now
it turns out that the PPM itself may have issues. It appears that
certain formats may have trouble being picked up consistently, and that
external forces -- wind through a window while driving, for example --
may prevent the PPM from accurately crediting listening. Likewise, a
station heard but with static as in long-distance listening or listening
to a weak signal may not be credited at all.

A
company called Telos can install something at a station called Voltair,
a technology that allows a station to be better “heard” and decoded by a
PPM. Think about that ... without Voltair, a PPM could miss actual
listening, and this has been proven in computer studies of PPM. With
Voltair the system works better, at least in theory.

If
this does not prove that PPM is flawed -- possibly fatally -- I don’t
know what does. It will be interesting to see how the industry responds
to this development. Will PPM be improved? Will it be changed? Dropped?
or will another company come around and show Nielsen the door?

No Seventies

American
Top-40: the Seventies has been removed from the schedule at KOLA (99.9
FM). Programmer Gary Springfield says it came down to ratings. “The show
has had consistently bad ratings for over a year,” he told me.

Since I live in the seventies, it makes me sad. Must be the damn PPM ...